


First Class

by parisian_girl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-17 10:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14830221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parisian_girl/pseuds/parisian_girl
Summary: Mac decides to give Phryne a little nudge in the right direction - with a bit of help from her Uncle Doug. And a corpse.Loosely set after s2e7 Blood at the Wheel.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before I start rambling, I just wanted to say how much I love this fandom - you guys are the best! :) 
> 
> So....this one....heaven help me, I wrote dialogue. In fact, it's mostly dialogue. I have no idea what I was thinking. Clearly, I wasn't thinking. I was just writing. So I apologise in advance. It was meant to be short drabble, but somehow ended up as a bit more than that. And it could be a one-shot, could be more....I'll leave that up to you ;). I've marked it as complete for now, but am open to persuasion. 
> 
> Enjoy! :).

“So.”

Mac swung her legs over the side of the chair, her trousers riding up a little to reveal dark socks and shiny brown brogues, and settled back into the velvet cushion. The tumbler in her hand was large, solid, its contents glowing amber in the flickering firelight, and she raised it appreciatively to her lips before fixing her friend with what could only be described as a _look_. “Did this one make it to sunrise?”

“Of course not”. Phryne Fisher sounded almost proud as she mixed her drink with a flourish and sashayed back to the chaise. “Darling, you know me better than that. Drink, dance, bed, out.”

Mac raised her eyebrows, and Phryne smirked at her over the top of her glass, her green eyes dancing as she sat back with a dramatic cross of her legs. She too wore trousers, but Mac knew for a fact that those trousers were silk, made-to-measure, and the equivalent of her own monthly pay packet. There were trousers, and then there were _trousers_. And of course, being Phryne’s trousers, these were definitely the latter. She ran her hands slightly ruefully down her own tweedy legs before she registered what Phryne had said.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting all Aunt Prudence on me.”

“And what’s wrong with your poor aunt?” Mac tried to sound as indignant as possible on Prudence Stanley’s behalf, but failed miserably and ended up snorting into her whisky instead. “No, I am not. Just….”

She tailed off. Only a close friend, she reflected, someone who knew Phryne Fisher inside out and back to front, would have caught the slight sadness in her eyes as she joked about yet another conquest being booted out of bed after a night of drinking and dancing, without even waiting until morning.

Only a close friend would know why that sadness was there. And only a close friend would know not to mention it.

Not directly, at least.

“You are being careful?” Mac shrugged as Phryne fixed her with a look of frank amazement, and buried her face in her tumbler. “Just checking. You have been….” She paused, pretending to search for the right words and knowing that Phryne wasn’t in the least bit fooled.

“Pushing it a bit?”

“Every night for ten days is good going, even for you.”

Phryne acknowledged the point, raising her glass in a silent toast to late nights and young men, but made no reply and for a few moments they sat in companionable silence.

It was moments like these that Mac treasured. The simple pleasures of peace and quiet and Phryne in the same space didn’t happen very often, but they always reminded her of what the two of them shared. She loved the vibrant whirlwind, of course she did, but these more private, more intimate times were different. They took her back to childhood, to summer days when she and Phryne roamed the sweltering streets from dawn til dusk, just the two of them, Phryne pinching apples from stalls and leaving her to act as lookout or provide a distraction; to winter nights when Phryne had slept over at hers and they had cuddled together under the covers, sharing a torch and a book, Phryne always impatient because she was the faster reader and could never wait to see what happened over the page. And she had always looked out for Phryne, never letting her be caught with stolen apples or illicit stories on her watch.

Some things never changed. Only tonight, she was looking out for her friend in a different way.

“Maybe you could try letting them stay on the train for more than one station stop.”

Phryne raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. The laughing look on her face suggested that she thought Mac might have had a touch too much whisky, but that she would humour her.

“Explain?”

“Well.” Mac kicked off first one brogue and then the other, making a show of getting even more comfortable as if she was about to tell a child a story. “Remember my uncle? He came to visit once….”

“The one with the kilt?”

“Indeed.” Mac swallowed her whisky.

“The one who wore nothing under the kilt?”

“The very same. And trust you to have found that out in ten minutes when we’d all been wondering for years.”

“Beside the point. What was his name again?”

“Douglas. Although everyone called him Charlie. I have no idea why.”

“As in Bonnie Prince Charlie?”

“Never”, Mac declared with a resolute wave of her tumbler. “Bonnie Prince Charlie is a Scottish hero. Uncle Doug was a lecherous old fart who just liked to drink.” She contemplated her glass. “Although I suppose I owe him something. He did have good taste in whisky. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, one night when he was particularly drunk and I was upset over that little squirt Mary Little - remember her? - he told me that life was like a train station. He told me I was the driver of the train, and I could choose where it went and who came along for the ride. I had a first class carriage, and a second class carriage, and a goods van. I had a platform, and a waiting room. And I could choose who went where depending on their ticket. If I really liked someone and they really liked me and they showed that they really liked me, then I could give them a ticket and they might get to travel in first class. Long haul. If I wasn’t sure about them, I could stick them in the waiting room until they either produced a ticket or left the station altogether. Which is where Mary came in. Second class was for people who only made it…well. Short journeys, you know. A night or two. Or, in your case, an hour or two.”

She paused to let Phryne’s snorts of laughter subside, but couldn’t help her own lips twitching.

“So you’re saying I have a train full of second class passengers?” Phryne’s laughter was infectious, and Mac bit back a smile, pretending to try and remain serious. “No, I think you at least deserve a first class ticket.”

“I’m honoured.”

“And what about Dot? Mr B?”

“Ok. Definitely first class”. Mac conceded the point as she remembered the delicious chicken pie and garden vegetables that Phryne's butler had spoiled them with for dinner…not to mention the fudge cake. “What about Burt and Cec?”

“I would say first class too, but they’d be happier in the goods van.”

“True.”

“See?” Phryne’s delighted voice was triumphant. “Who cares about second class when you have first class full and raggers keeping the goods van going?”

“Fair point.” Mac paused, allowing her laughter to die down before she quietly dropped the real point of the conversation. “And what about Jack?”

For a long moment there was silence, Phryne's smile dying on her lips and her eyes giving themselves over to that sadness that Mac had glimpsed earlier in the evening. She looked beautiful, Mac thought suddenly. Firelight and whisky and gentle melancholy.

“What about him?” Phryne’s eventual reply was quiet, almost a sigh, and Mac’s eyes held her friend close as she spelled it out.

“Where is he in the station?”

There was a long pause before the whispered admission, and Mac thought that she had never heard her friend - her indomitable, headstrong, charming freight train of a friend - sound so defeated.

“I don’t know. Outside, I suppose”.

“Is that where you want him?”

“Of course not, but he walked out, Mac. He chose not to work with me anymore. I don’t have a choice.”

“I’m not just talking about work”, Mac murmured quietly into her whisky, but Phryne did not respond. “Since when do you just lie down and take what other people hand out anyway?”

“He’s a grown man.”

“I had noticed.”

“He can make his own decisions.”

“I had noticed that too. But this time - if you'll excuse the French - he has made one almighty cock up in walking out of that station entrance.”

Her language was rewarded with a glimmer of mirth in Phryne's eyes.

“He has, hasn't he?”

“Yes, darling. He has. And the question now is”, Mac drained her tumbler and stood up to pour herself a refill, “What are you going to do about it?”

Phryne looked at her helplessly, and Mac shook her head.

“You really have got it bad”.

“I have not.” Mac smirked, her words having elicited the exact reaction she knew they would as a suddenly-indignant Phryne sat bolt upright. “I just happened to enjoy working with Inspector Robinson, that’s all. But if he no longer requires my help, then that’s his loss. And perhaps I….care…. _cared_ ….for him. A little. But..."

“A lot.”

“A medium-sized bit.”

“You’re in love with him. And he's in love with you. You're both just too daft to say so."

There was another pregnant pause, before Phryne uttered a curse that would have made a sailor proud and anyone apart from Mac blush, and slumped back into the chaise, her drink slopping against the side of her glass.

“Careful. Waste of a drink if you spill it.”

But Phryne either didn’t hear or didn’t care.

“So what do I do?”

“Is that an admission?” Mac sat back down, a smirk on her lips, and Phryne shot her a glare.

“As good as you’re going to get.”

“I thought so. Well, you could perhaps start by offering him the first class ticket he dropped on his way out.”

Phryne looked up at her with terrified eyes, and Mac’s expression softened. They both knew what they were talking about, and they both knew that Phryne had spent most of the last ten years running in the opposite direction from anything remotely resembling it.

“What if he doesn’t want it?”

“Then he’s the biggest idiot this side of the Pacific. And if he doesn’t, then I promise….” She racked her brains for something suitably dramatic, “I promise I will come to the Green Mill with you every night for as long as it takes you to dance and drink him right out of your system. Ok?”

Phryne gave a choked giggle. “You must be confident.”

“I am.” Mac didn’t add that she knew fine well that Phryne could spend every night for a year at the jazz clubs she was normally so fond of, and still not have Jack Robinson entirely out of her system. But at least, she thought, it had made her smile. And she was confident on this one. Very confident. “So. Are you going to talk to him?”

Phryne nodded, slowly. “Perhaps….tomorrow.”

“Ok, love”. Mac sat back, and they lapsed into another long, gentle silence. It had, she thought, gone better than expected.

She only hoped that Jack Robinson didn’t let her down and prove to be the biggest idiot the Antipodes had ever seen. She hated the Green Mill.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the lovely comments and encouragement on this one! I couldn't resist a second chapter - it might not be what you were expecting, but I love Mac so much I decided she should be the star of this one too ;). Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Also - on a slightly different subject - since I'm not on tumblr (yet!) can anyone tell me where to find the fanfic challenge prompts for next time around, please? :).

Mac whistled to herself as she entered the morgue. To any onlookers, the jaunty tune would have seemed completely at odds with the cold, impersonal space that held so much misery and grief and indignity, but this morning Mac couldn’t help herself. Despite the surroundings it was, she sensed, going to be a good morning.

Peeling back the white sheet that covered the body, she allowed the chorus to die on her pursed lips as she surveyed what had once been a human being - someone’s son and brother, perhaps someone’s father, loved and cherished and sorely missed - before picking it back up in muted tones of respect. This one, she saw from the notes, had ended up here after a drunken walk home had gone horribly wrong, and she shook her head at the waste. One too many shots of the hard stuff, one misplaced step, and here they both were.

“But you, my friend”, she paused in her whistling again to address the prone form on the steel table, “have a very important role to play this morning. Can’t divulge too many details, sorry…but you have my thanks in advance.”

  
The whistling resumed as she surveyed the equipment already laid out for her. A large steel dish, various surgical knives, forceps, specimen jars. It was the type of smorgasbord that would send shivers up the spines of most people, but to Mac they were merely instruments that helped her to see, to understand, and ultimately to cure. The human body, and in particular the human heart, was an intricately beautiful puzzle that just needed the right key to unlock it. And that was her mission this morning.

He entered right on cue, just as she was making the first incision.

“Inspector Robinson!” She hoped he didn’t notice the faked surprise, but to her relief he was looking at the body rather than at her, an expression of wariness on his features. “What have you done to be demoted to accidental deaths?”

“Doctor MacMillan”. His greeting was cordial, as ever. “I had a message to meet you here. Something about a murder?”

“Ummmm….” Mac shook her head as she made another incision, striking out at a precise forty-five degree angle from her first. “No murder, sorry. Not unless you want to arrest the kerb that got in this fellow’s way as he walked home last week”. She indicated the corpse’s head, where the stitches from the post-mortem formed an ugly dark gash against white skin. “He tripped and whacked his head. Massive bleed to the brain. He’d been drinking, of course, but still. So my apologies, Inspector, but there must have been some mix up with the message.”

“Oh. Well, in which case….”

“But now that you’re here, you may as well help.” Mac shoved the steel dish at him before he could turn for the door. “I need to do finish this now that I’ve started, but there is something that I need to talk to you about”. A third and final incision followed the first two, forming a perfect upside-down Y across the torso, and she saw Jack grimace out of the corner of her eye as she carefully peeled back the skin to reveal the glistening tissue underneath.

“Doctor, what exactly….”

“I need the heart”, Mac stated matter-of-factly. “For dissection and anatomy classes. At the university. It’s been quite a while since we had a young, healthy specimen like this that, as far as we know, hasn’t suffered any heart damage. My first year students aren’t quite up to dealing with heart disease or stab wounds or bullet holes just yet.”

“Oh”. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him draw a bit closer, his natural curiosity getting the better of him. They both peered into the chest cavity, Mac with the practised eye of the doctor that she was, and him with the slightly ghoulish inquisitiveness of a policeman who just couldn’t help himself. “And is it looking…..promising?”

“It is”, Mac confirmed, and saw him wince in sympathy with the poor man as she rootled around with her fingers, trying to locate the exact spot where she wanted to cut. “Just give me two minutes….”

They lapsed into silence as Mac concentrated, her brow slightly furrowed and everything else forgotten for the moment except the delicate task in hand. When his tentative question came, it almost made her jump.

“Have you…er…heard from Miss Fisher at all?”

Mac blinked, suddenly aware again of the room around her and her wider purpose for this whole exercise, and smiled. Maybe this was going to be easier than she thought.

“I saw her last week. In fact…”, she deliberately paused to make a further incision, “I thought she might have contacted you. She said she had a case that required your assistance”.

“Oh?” He sounded nonchalant, but she could almost see his ears pricking up and she nodded innocently.

“Umm-hmmm.” Another cut. “Something about lost or stolen train tickets, I believe?”

“Oh.” He looked blank - not that she could blame him - and shook his head.

“I take it she never called?” Mac knew fine well that Phryne had not talked to Jack as she had said she would, but wanted to make absolutely sure, case or no case. Although she was fairly sure there hadn’t been one of those either.

“No.”

This time he really couldn't hide the dejection in his voice, and Mac’s insides did a little dance. She had been so determined not to end up at the Green Mill if she could help it, and it seemed as if things might just be going her way.

“Well…..” She looked up just as the door opened for the second time that morning, with perfect timing again, “perhaps you could ask her yourself”.

Phryne Fisher looked bright and glowing - far too bright and glowing for the early hour, Mac thought, but then she suspected that Mr Butler’s coffee was just as good and strong as his fudge cake. Her cream and pink ensemble was like a breath of spring into the cold gloom of the morgue. Mac caught Jack eyeing the fitted trousers, the floating top and long jacket, the peek of shiny black hair under the cloche and the bright red lipstick, and allowed herself the tiniest smirk.

It wasn’t lost on Phryne, however, and Mac knew she would pay dearly for it later.

“Mac”, Phryne nodded to her, and only Mac would have caught the expression in her friend’s eyes that asked her what the hell she was playing at. “You called?”

“I did not”, Mac shook her head. Phryne would know she was lying through her teeth, but she had no intention of admitting it just yet. “The Inspector here got the same message, but I’m afraid there seems to be some mix up. No murder.”

“Then what…”

“This.” With a final twist and a hideous sucking noise, Mac held the heart aloft proudly with both hands, and both Phryne and Jack took a hasty step backwards, bumping into each other as they did so. Their apologies were instant and tripped over each other, and Mac almost laughed as she cut across them. “That dish please, Inspector?”

Jack held the dish out, and Mac dropped the organ into it with a sigh of relief before relieving him of the burden and turning her attention to closing the wounds she had created.

“What the….?”

“Anatomy classes”.

“Oh. Well, if there’s nothing I can be doing here….” Phryne turned back towards the door, and Mac shook her head.

“No, wait a second. I was actually just telling Inspector Robinson about that case you were working on.” She looked meaningfully up at Phryne, whose brow had wrinkled in confusion. “The one with the missing first class train ticket”.

Phryne’s expression was an absolute picture.

“Oh, that one!” Her voice was as artificially bright as her pink blouse, and equally as lethal. “Solved, I’m afraid. _Without_ the need for anyone’s help.”

Jack, who had been quiet up until now, his eyes never leaving Phryne’s face, bristled into life at the barb that he assumed was intended for him.

“I have been quite busy anyway, Miss Fisher. I doubt I would have had time for such trivial matters.”

“I can assure you, Inspector, it wasn’t trivial for the person stranded at the station, or for the train driver who didn’t know whether they could leave or not.”

He did at least have the grace to look a little abashed.

“I’m sure not, but….”

“And if you’re so busy…” Phryne was suddenly in full flow as she turned once more for the door, and Mac sensed that the frustration and anger and hurt of the past few weeks were about to explode. She only hoped they managed to get out of the morgue before it happened. Phryne had a tendency to work with what was at hand when it came to weapons, and she genuinely wanted this man’s heart for her anatomy class tomorrow. “You won’t be interested in the suspicious death that I was called to last night.”

With a flourish, she opened the door, and Jack caught up to her in two easy strides.

“Wait, what suspicious death?”

Phryne turned, and Mac saw her green eyes flash, her eyebrows shoot upwards, her arms come to cross defensively over her body. Abandoning all pretence of tidying up, Mac stood and watched. Phryne's temper was always a sight to behold, and since she was the one who had set it in motion, she told herself it was only fair that she see the resulting firework display.

And besides, Jack Robinson deserved it. Like most men, he really could be quite dense at times, and she had rather important wager riding on his behaviour. Anything she could do to push him in the right direction was worth it.

“I thought you were too busy?”

“I…..”

“You said you didn’t want to work with me any more. You walked out. You haven’t. Called. For. Weeks”. Each word was punctuated with a sharp finger jab into Jack’s chest, and Mac winced. “And _now_ you’re suddenly interested when a corpse shows up? Is that what I have to do to get you to even speak to me?”

Mac groaned quietly. “Please tell me you didn’t?”

“Of course I didn’t”. Phryne's eyes never left Jack’s face, as if it was him that had spoken rather than Mac, and her poking finger still hovered in mid air, ready for the next strike. It was, Mac thought, as if she wasn’t there at all. So much the better. “There is no body. And I really would have been quite happy never to speak to you again. But since you’re here, and since that got your attention….”

“Now wait a moment, Miss Fisher”. Jack drew himself up to his full height and grabbed hold of Phryne’s finger before it could do any more damage. “I didn’t volunteer to be here. Are you sure you didn’t engineer this whole thing? Because I am fairly sure…”

Phryne wrenched her finger out of Jack’s grasp.

“Don’t flatter yourself!” Neither of them, to Mac’s relief, turned in her direction. “But since you are here, you might as well know what an idiotic, stupid, blind….” She paused, searching for her next insult.

“Foolish?” Mac offered quietly, and Phryne nodded.

“Yes, and….”

“Dim witted?”

“That too, and…..”

“Cowardly?”

“Yes!” Phryne looked at Jack triumphantly, and Mac could see the first cracks appear in the Inspector’s facade. Poor Jack, she thought, always so done up and proper, so determined never to be anything other than professional. She almost felt sorry for unleashing an emotional Phryne Fisher on him. But then, she reminded herself, she was doing them both a favour. All of them actually. She wasn’t the only one who was thoroughly tired of their slow, tortuous dance around each other.

Dot, she thought, had done an admirable job disguising her voice with that phone call. Aided and abetted, of course, by Mr B. She would have to ask him later how he had kept Phryne out of the way.

“Since I seem to be subject of every insult under the sun, Miss Fisher - and Doctor MacMillan”, he shot her a look that said he would deal with her later, “would you mind telling me what I have done to earn them?”

Mac couldn’t help rolling her eyes, and Phryne almost squeaked with indignation.

“You really need me to tell you? Fine, _Inspector_. I…..you…..”. She paused, fumbling for her words, before eventually spurting them out in a rush. “That lost first class ticket was yours!”

Mac couldn’t blame Jack for looking thoroughly confused, and she wondered whether now might be a good time for her to make her exit. She didn’t want to have to repeat her Uncle Doug’s drunken ramblings all over again, and besides, she didn’t think they would have quite the same impact here. Phryne would do a much better job all by herself. Picking up the steel dish with its gruesome contents, she slipped around the table and past the two of them to the door, murmuring something about having to get the organ packed in ice otherwise it would be no good for her students at all, except to show rates of decomposition, but neither of them took any notice.

The last thing she saw as she looked back along the corridor was the two of them standing in the doorway, Jack’s hand tentatively wiping a stray tear from Phryne’s cheek, still wary of the jabbing finger but heading in the right direction, and she smiled. With a jaunty spring in her step, she headed towards the lab.

It seemed Jack Robinson did have a brain - and a heart - after all, and she might just avoid the Green Mill. And remembering who had provided the inspiration in the first place, she sent up a silent prayer of thanks to her Uncle Doug.

“Don’t get used to it, though”, she muttered, turning her eyes skyward. “It’s about the only decent thing you’ve ever done, even from up there.”

 

 

 

  



End file.
